Optical Fiber, Nanomaterial, and THz-Metasurface-Mediated Nano-Biosensors: A Review

Abstract

The increasing use of nanomaterials and scalable, high-yield nanofabrication process arerevolutionizing the development of novel biosensors. Over the past decades, researches on nano-technology-mediated biosensing have been on the forefront due to their potential application inhealthcare, pharmaceutical, cell diagnosis, drug delivery, and water and air quality monitoring. Theadvancement of nanoscale science relies on a better understanding of theory, manufacturing andfabrication practices, and the application specific methods. The topology and tunable properties ofnanoparticles, a part of nanoscale science, can be changed by different manufacturing processes,which separate them from their bulk counterparts. In the recent past, different nanostructures, suchas nanosphere, nanorods, nanofiber, core–shell nanoparticles, nanotubes, and thin films, have beenexploited to enhance the detectability of labelled or label-free biological molecules with a high ac-curacy. Furthermore, these engineered-materials-associated transducing devices, e.g., optical wave-guides and metasurface-based scattering media, widened the horizon of biosensors over a broadwavelength range from deep-ultraviolet to far-infrared. This review provides a comprehensiveoverview of the major scientific achievements in nano-biosensors based on optical fiber, nano-materials and terahertz-domain metasurface-based refractometric, labelled and label-free nano-bi-osensor